Step by step guide for making a tribe.
So how exactly does one create a tribe? Read this guide and you'll find out. Step 0: Be familiar with the canon tribes. The common knowledge of tribe makers. Get to know all the tribes and mechanics that are already added in game. Especially the special tribes. if you can't or don't want to buy them, just read on the official Polytopia wikia. Step 1: Have an idea. Idea is the concept and theme of your tribe. Is my idea good? To decide that, How to make a good fanmade tribe is the guide for you. Is my idea original? Whether having an original idea is important for you or not, you decide. If you are curious if your idea is original, you can scroll through the All Fan-Made Tribes list, but here are the most frequently suggested ideas: * native american * fire / lava / magma * australian * rainforest * taiga / cold desert / slavic * robot / futuristic / alien / cyberpunk * demons / undead / dark otherworldy make Vengir out of these! * sky / clouds / flying * pirates / evil watery tribe * angelic / light / wizardic * swamp / ogre / troll * insects * mining / dwarves * tiny islands Rules to follow if you want to have the chance of your tribe being added These are all confirmed by Midjiwan or Zoythrus, the community manager. # There won't be any more human tribes added, so only make special tribes. # The tribe has to not feature any questionable content, such as real world politics or religion, cannibalism, slavery, etc. And no NSFW content either of course. This is a friendly family game, keep that in mind. # This game is set in the era before guns, so no elements from moderner eras than that without good reason. Time travel is no good reason. # They can't have multiple starting techs, as well as no tech tree expansions, only tech modifications. # Make it as distinctive from other tribes as possible. The following steps can be made in any order, and making all of them is also not a must. Length of description of a step correlates with how frequently people make it. Step 2: Graphic design You should still make a design if you can't or don't want to actually draw it. Tribe colour and colour scheme One of the most defining factors of a tribe's appearnce is their colours. For their main colour wich they use as body and border colour, choose one that is as different from other tribes as possible. If you are familiar wit the RGB system, try to choose a colour that only uses FF, 80, (40,) 00 in its RGB code, since the canon tribes do that too. Never use more than one colours for this. Things to draw If you want to draw every sprite for your tribe, here is your to do list: * Headwear * Terrain: field, fruit, forest, animal, mountain * City: Capital castle + 5 city block elements * Monuments: 7 piece (Altar of Peace, Emperors Tomb, Eye of God, Gate of Power, Grand Bazaar, Park of Fortune, Tower of Wisdom) * Special thingies for special tribes. What software to use? That really doesn't matter, Photoshop and paint.net are popular, I use MS Paint, but hand drawing on paper is cool too. Well, not for copy pasting in the game but it's enough to display and show us your idea of how it looks. Step 3: Mechanics For human tribes Every human tribe gets a starting advantage that is something that any other human tribe could get later in the game. This is a tech most of the time, but can be a higher capital or a more advanced starting unit or a bigger discovered area, etc. They can not have any disadvantages except from low resources. For special tribes Every special tribe must have a unique super unit. They can have as many modified techs, buildings, mechanics and even terrain as necessary. Still can't start with multiple techs. Midjiwan says: # Dragon will forever be the only flying unit. # No stealth units or anything that the enemy can't see even though the area is discovered. # No more human tribes. # A tribe should not exist on the only sake of countering another, all should be compatible with any other on it's own. Step 4: Text parts This contains the name, the city syllables and the description. Naming a tribe For good examples, look at the canon tribes of course. Quetzali is made from Quetzalcoatl, a mayan god, Zebasi is made from the word zebra, etc. Some don't seem to resemble anything, like Xin-xi for example. The most frequent name endings are i, r, s, o. City name syllables You will need 5-15 of them, best to try out many combinations. Description Can be from a short sentence to a half page long, but has to fit in window in the game. Should feature some general description of give an idea of what kind of tribe this is, the description is also the place to tell some lore. Step 5: Music theme A short loop of sound that suits the tribe's ambience and feel. Can be made with any software of your choice, or if you have microphone and editing software, just make it with real sounds. Step 6: Source code If you want to absolutely complete your tribe, so that Midjiwan only has to copy and paste it into the game, you can also write the programming of the special elements. Step 7: Finish Now you have a complete tribe. What to do now? You can make an article for it here, if you don't know how to do that, read TESTTRIBE or ask somebody who has made many articles. You can also post on the r/Polytopia subreddit and on the official Polytopia discord server in the #suggestions or #fan-content channel, and if people really like it, it might get implemented in the game. After long testing of course. It is more likely that Midjiwan will base off a tribe from your idea and give you some credit. An example for this is the Yadakk tribe being inspired by the Moriton. Have fun and good luck!